Certain fabric cleaning actives or fabric care actives are intended to be deposited onto the fabrics during the washing operation. For example soil release polymers, brighteners, photo-bleaches, fabric enhancing actives such as softeners, but also perfumes need to be deposited onto the fabric such that they are still present after rinsing and drying of the fabric and still during use. In other applications, not related to fabric care or fabric cleaning, actives are equally required to deposit and remain for a certain time onto a surface, for example insect repellent, drugs, antimicrobials.
In particular when the actives are expensive, it is important that the actives are deposited efficiently and that they have a certain fabric substantivity, so that no (or not too much) actives are wasted, e.g. rinsed out.
A problem with for example perfumes is not only that the amount of perfume carried-over from an aqueous laundry or cleaning bath onto fabrics is often marginal, but also that the perfume which does remain on the fabric after the wash does not last long on the surface and/or does not give a long lasting perfume odour.
Therefore, there is a need to provide a more efficient and effective delivery of actives to surfaces, such as fabrics, for example for improvement in the provision of long-lasting of fabric enhancing actives, antimicrobials, or fragrance to the surfaces like fabrics or hair, or drugs or insect repellent to the skin or hair.
It has been found that by providing a condensation or addition products of such actives with certain reagents, results in active materials which deposit better onto the fabric. It has been found that the efficiency of the deposition of such product can be further improved when these condensation products have a very high viscosity, of at least 400 cps, more preferably 5000 or even 10,000 at 20° C. Typically, more active material or other active material, to be deposited as well, is added to the reaction product (without being reacted), thereby retaining the high viscosity.
Whilst this viscosity is essential to get an efficient deposition onto surfaces, the high viscosity brings as a problem that it is difficult to incorporate these materials into formulations, such as solid and even liquid detergent compositions.
The inventors have found a very simple, economic process for making such reaction products with such a high viscosity and making this into granules or suspendable droplets or particles. The process can be a batch process, in one vessel, or it can be a continuous process. The process is also such that the components formed, release the actives (for example into the wash) in a very dispersed manner (in the from of droplets), so not only effective deposition is achieved, due to the high viscosity, but also a very even deposition is achieved.
The process is useful for the making and further processing of any highly viscous reaction product, typically an addition reaction product or a condensation reaction product to be deposited onto a surface and to be formed into solid form or suspended particle or droplet form.